Identify the error in the sentence: 'When Maria telephoned Anna from the airport, she said that her flight had been postponed.'
Answer and explanation
Correct answer: D. ambiguous pronoun reference
- Step 1: The sentence has two female singular proper nouns ('Maria' and 'Anna') followed by ambiguous pronouns ('she' and 'her'). The reader cannot determine who spoke or whose flight was postponed, creating ambiguous pronoun reference. Answer: ambiguous pronoun reference. Why not the others: "faulty subject-verb agreement" occurs when a subject and verb disagree in number or grammatical person; "dangling modifier error" involves an introductory modifier that does not logically attach to the subject; "comma splice connection" joins two independent clauses using only a comma without coordinating conjunctions.
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